LETTERS

Where will dredged waste be dumped?

In response to “Board orders historic S.D. Bay cleanup,” Local, March 15): According to the article, under the mandate from the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board, various bay polluters will collect between 143,000 and 165,000 cubic yards of waste.

Nowhere does the article say where they will put the waste once they have collected it.

Elizabeth Arnold

Santee

U.S. must transition from fossil fuels

In response to “Middle Eastern oil or Canadian? It’s our choice” (Opinion, March 15): Charles Shapiro has it right when he says we need to become independent of oil from potential unfriendly nations so we can be assured that oil will reach our refineries and gas price spikes will be mitigated because, after all, “our standard of living depends on energy.”

What’s missing from this narrow view that the Keystone XL pipeline will provide this security is the fact that until we transition from fossil fuel altogether as our main energy staple we will never have this sought-after security and independence. The only rational path is to spur renewables as quickly as possible by eliminating oil subsidies, putting a revenue-neutral fee on carbon to reflect the actual cost of fuels and their GHG emissions contribution and supporting incentives and R&D for alternative clean sources.

Peg Mitchell

San Marcos

A tough assessment

In response to Jerry Navarra (Letters, March 15): I retired from San Diego city schools six years ago after 31 years of classroom teaching. I fully support the concept of paying teachers for how well they can teach. However, as this may sound like a simple solution, measuring “how well they can teach” is complex and the method is unresolved.

My last teaching assignment was working in a science technology lab with seventh- and eighth-graders. Because of the nature of the class, I was able to interact with students often an a one-to-one basis. If an evaluator were to observe, let’s say my period three class, I probably could have been ranked teacher of the year. If the evaluator were to instead observe the same class, different students the next hour, I might have well been asked, “How did anyone ever allow you into a classroom?” How well did I teach?

Frank Kilcoyne

San Diego

Discourse derailed

Professor Hinman may be right about the need for civility (“Civil discourse essential for debate to be fruitful,” Opinion, March 15), but I also think he is being disingenuous.

Many left-wing commentators, like Bill Maher, say some of the foulest things about people they disagree with, but we never seem to hear much about this from people like Professor Hinman. Then Rush Limbaugh comes along and says something insensitive about a phony Sandra Fluke and we have to be lectured about civility.

To his credit, Rush Limbaugh apologized, but you’ll never get an apology from lefties like Maher.

Bill DiMasi

Jamul

War not glamorous

I was saddened when I read “U.S. soldier kills 16 Afghan civilians” (March 12). Isn’t it ironic that Friday, March 16, marks the 44th anniversary of the My Lai massacre? On that infamous day, a group of American soldiers systematically murdered 500 innocent Vietnamese in the tiny village of My Lai.

More serious than our policy is a behavior, on the part of our government, that is brazen, defiant and in-your-face. Don’t we all remember, before the invasion of Iraq, our rhetoric: “Shock and awe” and “Bring them on.” We have lost the moral high ground, if we ever had it, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Our military and our government consistently betray our kids when they depict war as glamorous. Let us bring them home and allow them to live with and among their families, friends and loved ones.

Jack Doxey

Vice president Veterans for Peace

San Diego

Breeding dismay

I am dismayed the editors decided not to publish “Doonesbury” comic strip this week. What is the difference between articles on controversial subjects throughout the paper and having the same subject covered in the comic strip? Next time let me decide.